Main Flanderization Discussion

Is there really any evidence for Ron Weasley becoming Flanderized in the books (the movies, yes, both compared to the books and through the films themselves, at least until Deathly Hallows)? It's more like he matures more slowly than Harry and Hermione (which is understandable, he's neither a supergenius nor does he have the weight of the world on his shoulders), and he's insensitive, but calling him a dumbass is more of a fanon Flanderization than anything. He's less motiviated, but whenever he's actually helping out he's always fairly competent (after he returns in Deathly Hallows and is free from the Horcrux influence, I can't think of any fuckups on his part—hell, it's acknowledged that he actually takes the lead for awhile when Harry's brooding over the Hallows)

aolbain

07:09:58 AM Dec 24th 2014

Indeed, the Ron from the Books and the one from on this page don't have much in common.

Since Flanderization is a trope about one trait consuming the character over time, what's the trope where the character starts on the final stage of flanderization (like in the image on the trope page)?

Why is it now called "Flande Rization" with the odd capitalization and break as if it were two words? Even the main article treats "Flanderization" as a single term. It kind of ruins the pun to break it up like that.

I thought of a term, "fanderization," for instances where characters are effectively flanderized by people talking about them in fandom. A typical discussion about Superman vs Batman makes it sound like the former's SOP is, "I know you raped and murdered that nun, but I think you should stop what you're doing and sign up for classes at the local community college," and the later is, "YOU'RE OVERDUE ON YOUR LIBRARY BOOKS!!! I'M GONNA BUST YOUR CLAVICLE AND FEED YOUR KNEECAPS TO THE CHEETAH AT THE ZOO!!!" You know, they exaggerate the differences between characters beyond recognition, usually to make a tired point.

How to differentiate between flanderization and simple character development?

Sometimes people do change over time even in real life. Some aspect of them may get more and more prominent. For example someone could get more and more obsessed with something, or more and more disillusioned with life, as time passes. This does happen in real life, and it sometimes happens in fiction intentionally, as part of character development.

In some cases it can be hard to distinguish within a long-running show. One example that comes to mind is Gregory House from his eponymous series: In the first season he was relatively reasonable and treated his employees with some respect. The worst thing he did was bickering with Cuddy. Somewhere by the later seasons he had become quite a lot more bitter and outright mean, especially towards his employees, constantly trying to humiliate them or play mind games with them. (Also, he seemed to be less and less interested in the actual premise of the show, ie. medical mysteries, and more interested in creating drama with his employees, bosses and colleagues.)

One could argue that this is a case of flanderization. However, one could equally well argue that this is character development, and not something completely unthinkable from a character like House: He just grew more and more bitter over the years, and his focus shifted from one thing (medical mysteries) to another (making people's life a hell.)

MsCC93

03:23:21 PM Sep 19th 2013

Flanderization involves writing and fiction, and real life isn't fiction.

slowauthor

08:27:47 AM Sep 27th 2013

What about Joey in Friends? Can never figure out if his dumbing down is a character development arc (decay arc?) or if he was Flanderised. I kind of blame the failure of the spin off on the fact that so much of what was real about his character had been stripped away to leave him a caricature of what he was in the earlier seasons of Friends. If you watch a season one episode and then a season 8/9 episode it feels like he's had some kind of brain trauma. Friends kind of Flanderised half their characters and reverse Flanderised the other half. Joey becomes a loveable simpleton, Ross an affected oddity and Monica ends up bordering on OCD and shrieks a lot. Pheoby goes from wierdo hippy to fairly normal individual, Rachel from Pampered Daddy's girl with no clue about the world to normal and confident woman and Chandler loses most of his quirky acerbic wit and self loathing to become a lot more balanced and confident.

MagBas

08:56:19 AM Sep 27th 2013

Character Development is simply "character changes". If the change in question is believable or " good" is not important.

What is the opposite effect called? For example, in the early episodes of the original 90210, there was clear character differentiation, especially in David, who was an un-cool outsider kid, spurned by the main gang. Steve was a bit of a thug, I recall. But as the show goes on, the differences between the characters disappear, and they become clones of each other, one homogeneous lump. Is there a Trope for this?

Posted in the Western Animation Flanderization discussion, but I thought I'd ask it here (My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic):

OK, so it's possible that Big Macintosh has been Flanderized, but it's also entirely possible that it's an aspect of his character that we haven't seen. I would like to keep the original possibility of him being Flanderized while also presenting the possibility that this is just an aspect of his character. I added this in:

To be fair, though, he's only seen talking to Applejack. When Twilight Sparkle is around, he only has one line. In many of his other appearances, he's around the residents of Ponyville. It's entirely possible that this is the reason why he doesn't speak much (he's uncomfortable doing it around people he is unfamiliar with).

But it was removed by Komodin for being natter (though I maintain that it is not, as this is how I present two possibilities when it is entirely my work, not just as an addendum to others'). Any suggestions on how I could edit it to present both without it getting removed for being natter?

I've made my thoughts about the long list of Flanderized Tropes above, but I see it's been moved from a subpage back into the main page.

Leaving aside the earlier debate (which I still think is valid), surely if anything's worthy of putting on a sub-page, it's that? Whatever else can be said about it, it's massive and it takes up half the friggin' page for goodness sake.

Trismegustis

07:46:56 PM Oct 31st 2011

Ugh, yes, this. I didn't like how bad it got on a subpage, but I like it even less on the main page.

Concur that it should be moved back onto a subpage. If not just outright deleted. I think ignoring the above concerns would be a mistake, and this section needs a lot of work if we're going to keep it around.

(Also, why is it that positive examples of 'trope flanderization' have been removed from that list?)

The Flanderized Tropes list seems to have a lot of problems. The definition of flanderization implies a certain narrowing of focus. For characters, what was once a minor part of a well-rounded character becomes the defining characteristic of the character. For tropes, examples should be about a minor part of the definition of a trope becoming the main criteria of the trope. The vast majority of the flanderized tropes list seems to be complaining about the inverse: a trope (or just its examples) expanding in scope so that what was once the main point of the trope is now just a small part of what the trope covers.

I suppose moving it back onto a subpage might work, but I think we'd be better off just cutting it entirely. The whole thing reads like Complaining About Tropes/Examples You Don't Like.

Venatius

09:41:50 AM Jan 3rd 2012

This may seem a little hypocritical of me to say, but doesn't the entire TV Tropes section describe Trope Decay, not Flanderization? The tropes themselves are being misapplied more than changed, and the changes are a broadening of definition, not an exaggeration of existing traits. Either way it seems like they'd belong on that page instead, and if they don't belong there of all places, do they really belong anywhere? If not moved there, subpaging it seems to make more sense.
Yes, I know I tacked some things on to it myself, but being a hypocrite doesn't invalidate my point (I hope).

Is it just me, or does the lengthy list of tropes which seem to have become flanderized (according to the person who added it, of course) itself appear to have become flanderized? It seems to have become just an excuse for people to bitch about tropes or trope pages they don't happen to like very much.

The other points in the 'TV Tropes' section seem fair enough, but do we really need the list? It takes up half the page, after all. And if the problems with these tropes are really that bad, it's a matter for Trope Repair Shop, surely?

ElectroKraken

05:28:38 PM Sep 17th 2011

I think that list from the TV Tropes section should at least be split from this article, since it's mostly about stretching the definition of a trope while Flanderization is supposed to be about narrowing down the traits that a character has.

Trismegustis

10:37:47 PM Oct 17th 2011

Oh, hey, I was just in there commenting about this. It's still going a bit far... Should we retitle it or something? It's not even so much about flanderization anymore.

I cut this bit out since it IS about completely different characters rather than strict flanderization, and even the fake-flanderization argument doesn't really hold in all cases. However, since it's a lot of text, holding it here in case someone wants it back.

Although they're technically different characters, the four survivors in Left 4 Dead 2 could be considered Flanderizations of the personalities of the original four survivors:

Francis in the first game was shown to be a Jerk with a Heart of Gold, who acted tough and rude but was actually a sensitive guy with a genuine interest in the safety of his companions for reasons other than his own survival. Nick, his replacement in 2, throws out the "Facade" part of Francis' Jerkass Fašade, very obviously caring only about himself and generally being a total scumbag, lacking Francis' redeeming good side.

Bill was a Vietnam War veteran who worked well under the pressure he faced in the apocalypse, managing to stay calm for the most part, but still became quite impatient and short-tempered at times because he really wanted to get everyone to safety ASAP, due to a sort of fatherly instinct. Coach, his replacement in 2, keeps Bill's short temper, but is otherwise just a generic Scary Black Man who doesn't seem to demonstrate the "fatherly instinct" aspect that made Bill an important and likable part of the team.

Zoey was a definite Action Girl, very Genre Savvy after having watched loads of zombie movies and fully capable in the apocalyptic world. Rochelle, her replacement in 2, lacks the "Action" part, instead being consigned to nothing beyond the role of The Chick / token female in the group and being widely regarded as a Replacement Scrappy.

DrStarky

06:34:42 PM Dec 23rd 2010

Yikes! This is just complaining about the charcters in L 4 D 2. We don't want that on the page.

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